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She Got Kicked Out of College… Now She’s a Sales Director · Unbilled & Unfiltered's Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Unbuild and Unfiltered, the podcast where we go beyond the job title to hear the real stories behind the people working in law and also the wider legal industry.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by Hannah Wright, Sales Director at Montpellier Legal.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hannah has built a career across the property and legal services industry, moving from working within an estate agency into the legal sector and also progressing through senior commercial and business development roles.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk today about sales relationships, leadership, ambition, the property and legal industries, and of course the person behind the LinkedIn profile.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hannah, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm not sure, well, I've written, I'm not sure you know this, but I know for a fact from the conversation that we have just had that you are fully aware.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: We grew up in a very, well, in the same town.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Did you grow up in Haywards Heath?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh grew up in Haywards Heath until I was about seven.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then moved out to the Styx, and it really was the Sticks of uh a tiny little hamlet village called Dane Hill.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I went to a primary school where there was 50 people in the whole school, and my class was um years four, five, and six together because it was just so small.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was crazy, yeah.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's genuinely such a small world.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we just had, and I wish that we'd always had the conversation recorded.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So bizarrely, I mean Haywardseath is a very small town in East Sussex, um, but we actually grew up in an even smaller town.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, I say village, really, more than town.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hamlet, I would say.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's no shop.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so moving kind of on to really how you have got from that tiny village environment to where you are now.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did you did you want to become a sales negotiator or did you fall into the role?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel as though growing up in these tiny kind of villages, hamlets, towns, there are limited job roles that you can start out in.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um it was an interesting one.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say it stemmed back to when I moved schools.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So um after primary went to secondary, and then halfway through secondary school, I moved to another one, which was um Warden Park, which was in Cookfield, right?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And there was from my village one bus every like two hours.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And for me to get to that sort of 270, is it?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's a 270.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it does run a little bit more regularly now.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're in the modern day, but this was, you know, what, 20 years ago, something like that.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um anyway, so to get to school was such a rigmarole for me.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I ended up doing in terms of like the later part of school was I would um stay at my friends' houses quite a lot because it was just um it was just a long old journey.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And they all lived in Haywards Heath, right?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it was kind of like because I'd moved from this tiny little village and I was staying with my friends in Haywards Heath, and there was like a shop and a and a park, you know, where you'd go.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember well, I remember well.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I it was kind of like, well, this is like the bright, the big bright lights of you know, not a very rural hamlet.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: So um, fast forward to when I was 17, I actually moved out of home because um I could not pass my driving test for love nor money.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: It took me five times in the end.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that was an essential part of living in the middle of nowhere.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I moved in with um some friends, and at that point as well, I'd left school and I'd gone to college.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh my journey at college was interesting.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I chose law, psychology, science, and English, I think.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I went to college every single day, but I didn't go to any lessons.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just it just didn't interest me at all.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it was because I didn't choose those subjects.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: My parents had chosen those subjects for me, and it just I just wasn't interested.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a person that if I'm not interested in something, I uh I just don't apply myself to it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or certainly I didn't, you know, you get older, you do.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I went to college and um I uh got kicked out for for non-attendance, but I knew that I was gonna be kicked out, so I knew that I needed a job.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that is where I um went straight into work, and I did a very brief stint in hairdressing, and I worked for Look Fantastic on Hayward Heath Broadway, and I did my uh apprenticeship hairdressing, but during that time I'd made friends with somebody that worked at my first estate agency in Haywardseath, and um it just really interested me.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've always loved dealing with people, um, I was really interested in property from a very young age, um, and uh that is how I sort of first entered into the agency side of things.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I also feel as though there's something about living in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by these sort of kind of quintessential properties.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I felt exactly the same about property.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I just I fell in love with the environment that I was in, the kind of rural environment.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is really sad, and I almost I really don't want to admit this, but I know I'm gonna admit this, and I also know this is probably gonna be put into a short-form clip.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um I used to play estate agents growing up.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Did you like that's not normal?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's not normal.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can see Dom laughing now.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um I used to play estate agents growing up.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely loved it.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something about seeing all of these kind of, you know, we're incredibly fortunate to live in such a beautiful area, but like the houses would just be sort of even tiny chocolate box houses, you know, there was just something about them that I absolutely adored.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um so, yes, that's incredibly sad growing up playing estate agents, and something that I definitely shouldn't have admitted, but I now have.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um so how did you feel starting out in this role?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of starting out in kind of as an estate agent or as a you know sales negotiator.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite it's not a role for the faint-hearted.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't, and actually it's an incredibly and and kind of still is the agency world, especially at the the senior level.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very male-dominated um world.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh the office that I worked in was uh I think there was like five men in there, and I had a role where I was like an administrator slash negotiator, so I was trying to uh I wanted to become like a full negotiator, and it was funny because it was so long ago we had one computer which was like this big in the office, um, and everything was done sort of like on handwritten sort of like cards.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's how you'd remember your clients.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, um the competitiveness of the guys in there really interested me, and so I started to be really competitive, and I would get to the phone first and everything, and it just really excited me.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I just fell in love with it.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I feel I I loved dealing with people, um, I loved that you are dealing with them at the most challenging point in their lives and at different parts of their lives, so you could be getting somebody that was divorced, or you could have a newly married couple that are buying their first home, um, and I just loved that kind of um that kind of interaction.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: But then ultimately um I wanted to sell beautiful homes, and whilst Hayward Heath is gorgeous, the market that we were in was you know lovely homes, but I wanted to to sell like the gorgeous stuff.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So then I moved to the Surrey and London markets, and that was really cool.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, do you think that there was an element of your sort of personality even growing up that had that drive to, I mean, have you always been quite competitive, do you think?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Or I think not necessarily competitive against other people, but in a way competitive with myself.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've always been ambitious, but I just didn't know what in.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think when you are young, you kind of and you know, being a parent now, I understand this more, but I think your parents just want the best for you, and my parents, like many, wanted me to go into a further education, and I always wanted to be out there uh doing my own thing, um, and uh probably a bit rebellious in in that sense.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I think it's probably more competition with myself.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've always wanted to do well, do bigger stuff, and I think that also comes from wanting to get out of a small village.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, so you've been working in property since 2009, starting in an estate agency and moving into Legal, then progressed from new business manager to senior leadership at Taylor Rose, and now sales director at Montpellier Legal.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us a bit about how you went from working in that small town?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've touched upon it as a sales negotiator to the sales director at such an established conveyancing firm.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: What a question.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't really know if the honest answer.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what I would say is that I spent 10 years in agency, and I I feel like I really cut my teeth in agency when I moved to a particular um company which uh was called Gascoigne Peas, and that was in the Surrey market, and I had an amazing leader.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I won't name him, but um it we we still talk, um, and he's still in the industry, and he really inspired me, and I just wanted to be like him.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh I just learned a lot, and so from there I feel like my career really progressed, and I moved to London um after a few years, I can't remember exactly um the year, and then I worked for Hamptons for a long time, and I did a couple of different roles there.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I was front office agency, I ran my own office in um on the Northcote Road in Battersea.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but prior to that, for a couple of years, I worked in their training department.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so training people on sales, communication skills, how to be brilliant agents essentially, and that gave me a really interesting insight into like the operational side of a business as opposed to just being front office selling houses.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I realized I want that side of things, I like um I like the business element, and I then had a bit of an existential crisis, I would say, in uh what was it, like 2018.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't go to college, as I said, while I got kicked out, um, and I didn't go to uni, obviously, and that had always been fine for me, but in the back of my mind, I had had this niggle.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of my friends had, well, all of my friends had gone to university, and you know, still at that time people would say, Oh, you didn't go to uni, or you know, and it would kind of be a bit of a taboo.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And for a couple of years it got to me, and so I thought, you know what, I need to do something slightly different.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: I need to branch out, I want to grow my knowledge of business and a different industry.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I did a stint in banking.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I got the job through a client.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I sold their house, and they were like, you'd be really good at you know working in this investment banking space.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was a it was a um a consultancy where we would um understand what big banks needed in terms of their tech projects, and we would deploy teams of consultants, and I would then manage the the program and the process.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I knew not a thing about banking at all, and I really felt so out of my depth, but I loved it because I felt out of my depth.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I just learnt, I learned loads, I learned loads about leadership, I learned loads about the operational side of a business, but I missed property.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that has always been my calling.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: So then I thought, do I go back into front office agency?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then my old boss, the one that I said inspired me, was working with my previous law firm, Taylor Rose, and um got me the job there.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that's an important thing?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it doesn't sound as though you kind of regret the process to get to where you are now.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why you would, but do you think sort of it's an important part of people's journeys to branch out and try different areas, or do you think that's actually going to be detrimental to their sort of you know, CV timeline?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the fact is that when you're hiring now, it is unusual for um people I would say sub-30 to not have bounced around in different roles.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think it's it's always interesting because like my parents, you know, they had one job for a really long time, and I think that's a generational thing, and I think now it's to be expected.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I do think you need to be careful and conscious of it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if you're going for an interview um or you're writing a covering letter or something like that, you need to be making clear why you left those positions.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, so long as there's a good reason, then that's fine.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I personally think that for me, most of the roles that I've had have been for you know a fairly long tenure, and uh I think it really has shaped who I am.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I've had lots of different bosses as well, so as now a leader, that's um been a really good learning curve for me because I've had some amazing bosses.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've also had some really, really terrible bosses, but you learn so much more from the bad ones than you do the good ones.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or certainly I have anyway.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have an example of bad leadership?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, um, yes, I do.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think bad leadership, um I think speaking poorly of other members in the team to anybody is not a good uh not a good thing to do.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't create that good environment.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think as well um I've had experiences of bad leaders where they have not made any time for you as an individual or the team.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And when they do, it's like you're speaking to them for the first time.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's no um understanding of who you are as a person.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've had experiences where, you know, um they know absolutely nothing about my personal life at all, and yet we work together um, you know, five days a week for however God knows how many hours, and it's just not personal, I would say.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that you know, the best leaders that I've ever had have had that really good balance of they're not your friend, they're a mentor and a and a coach, but really approachable.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think the worst leaders I've had have not been approachable and just have shown that they don't care about the people that work for them.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so sales can sometimes get a bit of a bad reputation, particularly in professional services.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think people fundamentally misunderstand about what good sales actually is?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um for me, good sales is about um really understanding what that client needs and wants and listening and not just selling them something for the sake of it.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um the uh the best salespeople uh take the time to understand that client, their journey, their story.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: The worst will go straight in with you have to buy this product or service without building any form of rapport, and that's when it can come across as a bit shark-like.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, people will buy, and this is a cliche, but I really believe it, they will buy from people that they like and that they know, care, and that are interested in them.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not always about um getting the the deal the quick the quickest in sales.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it takes a little while, um, but yeah, it's establishing that relationship.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't do that, you are not gonna get the deal or or as many or the best.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you've built a career around relationships with estate agents, lawyers, conveyancers, referers, clients, and of course internal teams.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Can you build a genuine relationship with someone when there's ultimately a commercial transaction involved?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: I believe so, yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, uh if I look at who so as a firm, our clients are um, you know, the the the buyers and sellers that are transacting with us.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're my clients as well.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: But also um my clients are um the referring partners that we work with, and they can be any form of property firm, but largely they are brokers, developers, uh surveyors, estate agents.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's really important for me that the commercial relationship that we have with external partners is a two-way respectful relationship.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's also important for me when I want to work with a business that they are gonna be the right business for me to work with as well, and it's a two-way thing.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: But also, I just think the best relationships commercially are built where you do have that friendliness.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm coming back to those boundaries as well.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think that you've got to let them see a part of you and your real authentic self, um, because that is the way to capture a long-standing, long-lasting relationship.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: By doing that and cultivating those relationships in that way and building that trust in that kind of like emotional bank account, as it were, when something does go wrong and you have to apologize, or they have to apologize, because you have built up so much goodwill over the years, um, you can get over it.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's really important.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think it can be done.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Some relationships are more difficult than others.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have some um, you know, uh people that I work with that I've known for years and years and years, um, who I would go out for dinner with, you know, on a on a friendly basis.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I definitely think it can be done.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: You've just got to find the balance um and where the lines are for you both.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Moving on slightly, but I'm gonna spool back to this um kind of theme as well.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you use AI in your day-to-day and how does it help or hinder your workflow?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I am uh not, and any of my team listening will laugh at this, but I am not a particularly techie gal.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, however, um as a business, we do use elements of uh of AI to help speed up the process and you know more sort of operationally.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: For me, um I use the the most I would use it for would be kind of like um uh checking a really long email.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or or I have a tendency, as you can probably tell from this conversation, to talk loads and loads, and unsurprisingly, my written communication can be like that.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I might say, you know, condense it down a little bit, um, but I will then often amend it and change it.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't use it too much.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that had I had AI when I'd started out years ago, I think it could have maybe hindered my progress a little bit because um, you know, you don't have someone telling you all the answers.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think it's good, but I always think you need to double check what it's telling you and also try and think on your feet first before using AI.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think that's one of the things that we always kind of mention, you know, using AI as a tool to support you rather than replace you.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you feel as though there is kind of room for you to potentially look into using AI more so, or is there a reason as to why you don't particularly use it in your day-to-day?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for me personally, um I don't feel I have needed to up until well, I don't I don't feel like I really need to.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I think as an industry overall, um I think there is no doubt that AI is changing the landscape very, very fast.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's probably a case of you need to get on the bus.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I also think that there is that balance to be found uh between not becoming so automated that you lose the heart and soul of a business, and especially when you know in conveyancing, um you're in a very people-focused business, and people, when they're dealing with their biggest asset, most of the time, certainly the demographic, the type of clients that we work with, they want to be able to speak to somebody and they want advice that doesn't look like it's written from AI.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Would you trust a human being their advice over a form of you know technology, AI, for example?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think uh that is a potentially a different question for 10 years time, maybe even five years.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't think the technology, certainly within this sector, is there yet.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think, though, to your point, you're right, we're human, mistakes happen.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: I would also, though, be looking at a firm who wants to utilize technology to help speed up processes and you know, um uh and and you know, take some of the day-to-day away, but a firm that is also very focused on service and still delivering that human touch.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So a bit of a hybrid.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I think if anybody is, you know, uh I think that people will get left behind if they are not looking to embrace or understand um what technology can offer.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And funnily enough, so my next question was what do you think the legal profession is still getting wrong when it comes to technology and the climate?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Experience and I think you've sort of covered it there in terms of you know firms not looking to embrace technology and being kind of innovative and forward thinking, I think that potentially will hinder their clients' experience.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to the staff that you're responsible for, people first or business first?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: I would say people first.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you do not have happy people, motivated people, people that care, people that are passionate, anything that you try to bring in from the top down is not gonna work.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I've worked in businesses where it is very much a business first approach, but then all that happens is that people leave.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And for my business at the moment, we've got a 95% uh retention rate of our staff, which is unheard of, and that is because we have happy people.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: We make sure that they're in nice environments that they want to work in, we make sure that there is a clear progression path and that they are supported.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever we interview people, the biggest reason for them wanting to leave somewhere is because they are not supported, there's no progression plan, there's no training, they don't feel valued.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: So people first, and then the business will flow, is how I see it.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever stayed in a job longer than you should have because you were scared of what came next?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I think so.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's been a couple of different uh points in my life where that's probably happened.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one was um staying in agency in a front office role, whilst I loved it, and I still can I still like consider myself as an agent.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: I deal with them every single day, and you know, I love it.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I think at that point in my life I was very comfortable and I was very scared to go into something that I didn't know.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: So back to the banking thing, going back into a completely new industry after doing something that I'd known for 10 years was scary.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think um there's been a couple of other examples where perhaps I haven't necessarily um I haven't necessarily my values haven't necessarily aligned with the business's values that I was working for.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I probably say they're a little bit too long.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Hannah, you are clearly incredibly ambitious, you've done exceptionally well, you've worked very hard to get to where you are.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Has there been any downside in sort of working quite so hard, you know, over the last 10 years or so?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, has there anything that you have have you had to sort of put things on hold personally, professionally, to sort of get to this sales director position?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say I've put things on hold, but I would say that I still now really struggle to have a work-life balance.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that is absolutely um uh you know something that I'm it's a a work in progress.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I talk and I'm very good about talking about like setting boundaries for yourself and everything like that, but when it actually comes to you, you know you don't take your own advice.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that um I now don't know any different than working, you know, seven days a week, answering emails late.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: That is not my advice for anybody to do though.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's just what keeps my mind kind of calm.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say that that, you know, that affects me.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I feel like I can't shut off.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't think that's uncommon for anybody, though, in this day when you're working and you've got your your phone and it's by your bed and you're seeing things pop up.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that that has been a bit of a sacrifice.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say I've put things on hold.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, one thing I wished I had done is travel more.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, again, the uni thing, you go to uni and then not a lot of people go travelling after, and you know, that's probably a bit of a regret because it's very hard to then go from being in work and earning money, and remember I moved out when I was 17, so I've been you know self-sufficient from that time to then go away for a year or so and then have to start all over again.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd I'd say actually, I haven't really thought about it like that, but that's probably something that I wish I had possibly done or made time for.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And do you think there is the ability to sort of build such a career as yourself whilst having a work-life balance?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely do.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: A good work-life balance.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I absolutely do.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And look, I'm not saying that I don't have a work-life balance, I I I absolutely do.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I sometimes I just wish that I could shut off more.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I definitely do, and you know, I think um I have I've got a 16-month-old little girl, and for me, coming back to work also into a new role in a new firm, that has been a very interesting challenge.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you're some, you know, you you just make it work, you make it happen, and I think subconsciously I have been having more of a work-family life balance because you simply have to.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: The key is I have worked in this industry for a long time, my bosses trust me, I do a good job, they know that I'm on it, and so I can have that time to do the family things that I need to do if indeed it's picking up at you know 4 30 in the afternoon, something like that.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that comes back to the relationship thing, right?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just jump straight into that.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: You need to build your personal profile, your personal brand, um, how people trust you and what they think of you before you can um, you know, have that flexibility.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is something that is another piece of advice I would give to anybody that is kind of like coming into work or is at the early stages of their career is um trust is something that really does need to be built and earned over time.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we are in a world where you know work-life balance and flexibility is more prominent than ever, but it is still really important to show that you're working really hard and that you're a reliable, dependable person because that will get you far, and people remember that.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: What does success actually mean to you now compared with uh sort of five or ten years ago?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: I would say as I've got um older, hopefully wiser, um, and um you know have longer in my career, that I probably used to be quite selfish sales, right?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and when I didn't have a big team or you know, didn't have other people to that relied on, you know, me or what I did.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I would say that success when I was younger used to look like um, you know, doing the most deals, all that kind of stuff.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And now success to me is, and I genuinely mean this, seeing people rise up and seeing how what I have hopefully helped them in terms of you know, coaching, mentoring, advice um has helped shape them and their professional career.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: That is such a big reward for me.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I know that sounds a bit cliche, but I really do mean that.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: I love that is what success looks like is a you know a team that wants to be there, that is passionate, that are really good at what they do.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, I take pride in that.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, Hannah, thank you so much for joining us on Unbuilding Unfiltered.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you follow the podcast, leave us a review, and share it with someone who would have enjoyed this conversation.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to be considered the podcast, please visit www.unbuildunfiltered.com